Cheat’s Guide To Hamlet
So I just saw my first Hamlet. I started small, with a “verbal and visual interpretation” by DreamThinkSpeak; The Rest Is Silence. It’s like all the important bits you’d underline to revise for an exam without all the noodly suicidal bollocks that goes on for ages in the middle. Which is quite an apt metaphor really, considering that until an hour or two ago, I DIDN’T ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT HAPPENED IN HAMLET. My v cursory research told me that it was basically a cross between The Lion King and The Killing, and was about a stay-at-home loser who needs to shit or get off the pot. The main dude looked a lot like Ben Gibbard from Death Cab For Cutie which really added an extra dose of whiney crybaby to the role.
So, The Rest Is Silence is 90 mins long and it’s performed from inside a load of boxes around this central audience chamber. You have to stand up the whole fucking time. I was also a bit disappointed that there was no interactivity after the DreamThinkSpeak version of The Cherry Orchard had a whole fucking DEPARTMENT STORE of people trying to sell you fucking BIRDSONG in RUSSIAN. And the design inside the boxes was a bit sparse. I mean, it’s all very well bringing the Danish royal family up to date and everything, but I refuse to believe they would sit at a perspex desk. Although maybe the bald guy with the desk wasn’t actually a member of the royal family. I dunno. Anyway, it was just a bit like that Ikea advert with all the parties in the kitchens except we were trapped in this central death chamber and couldn’t play with the fancy self-closing drawers.
I was getting a bit bored and restless by the end if I’m honest, although they reinvigorated things somewhat with a fucking cool swordfight. Sword fighting’s pretty sexy. Two men trapped in a box, sweating and lunging at each other. LIKED IT.
